A very big game looms tonight for the ( 27-28) Milwaukee Bucks.  A win tonight against the visiting New Orleans Hornets (30-27) and the Bucks will be back to even record wise, with 26 games to go after tonight.

Milwaukee just recaptured the 8th seed in the East.  They are 8-2 at home in 2010, and have won four in a row on the road.  They lead the league in FG attempts per game, meaning they play fast.  They are fifth in the league in rebounding, and their bench leads the Eastern Conference in bench scoring.

They inserted newly acquired John Salmons into the starting SG spot againainst New York, replacing the incumbent Charlie Bell, making them instantly more athletic.  Salmons, along with rookie PG Brandon Jennings makes for an exciting new Milwaukee backcourt.

Gone is big man Hakim Warrick, traded to Chicago as part of the trade that bought us Salmons.  His departure leaves the PF position to be manned by two Milwaukee young guys, Ersan Ilyasova and Luc Richard Mbah A Moute.

Add another somewhat newcomer in Jerry Stackhouse, whom the Bucks just picked up as a free agent just under a month go, and they Bucks have gotten more athletic on the fly.

Add Carlos Delfino into the mix of Salmons and Stackhouse at the SG and SF positions, that is a nice trio of wing guys that can cause matchup problems on both sides of the ball.

Anchored in the middle of it all is center Andrew Bogut, coming off his most recent outing of 24 points, 20 rebounds and 5 blocks.  Bogut currently holds the leagues longest streak of blocking a shot at now 20 consecutive games.  Bogut is second overall in blocked shots and climbing, having blocked 5 shots in each of his last three games.

Then this leaves us with the PG position where another young buck in Brandon Jennings (with the same nickname), leads the team at the controls.

For the amount of work he does for his team, most importantly running the whole dam show, I think although his shot and scoring has dropped off, he has done an outstanding job with all the responsibility he has in running things for a team in the playoff chase.

Having Salmons will help him because he is much more talented than Bell, giving Jennings what he has always needed this year, a talented running mate out top.  He has that now and it should take some of the pressure off of young Jennings, and now he can be a third scoring option behind Bogut and Salmons as opposed to the first scoring option he had become.

The less workload should drive Jennings and the team back to success.

Check em out.  Not only are they fun to watch, they will give you an honest days work.

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